3.1 CASE STUDIES
The ARC's Making a difference—Outcomes of ARC supported research is an annual publication that demonstrates how research funded through the NCGP is making a real difference to Australia, and the world. The following case studies reflect a selection of the research projects captured by Making a difference, which demonstrate the economic, environmental, social, health and cultural benefits arising from ARC-funded research. The full publication can be accessed through the ARC website, www.arc.gov.au > News > Publications > Making a difference.
Wild dog Dingo in the wild nature Australia.Credit: iStock.com/Alexandr Baranov.
On the dog's trail
Lead Investigator:Professor Sue O'Connor
Institution: The Australian National University
Scheme: Australian Laureate Fellowships
New radiocarbon dating techniques used on the oldest known dingo bones from Madura Cave on the Nullarbor Plain found that they were between 3348 and 3081 years old, indicating that dingoes arrived in Australia as domestic animals later than previously believed. The new techniques are more accurate and also help us better understand the timing of the disappearance of other native animals, such as the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger), from mainland Australia, which followed their predation by newly-arrived dingoes.
The lightweight cladding core material showing the tiny ceramic particles.
Credit: Sarah Fisher/The University of Melbourne.
Ceramic particles confer fire-resistance to lightweight cladding
Lead Investigator:Dr Kate Nguyen
Training Centre Director: Professor Priyan Mendis
Institution:The University of Melbourne/RMIT University
Scheme: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award/Industrial Transformation Training Centres
Ongoing research at the ARC Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing (University of Melbourne) and School of Engineering (RMIT) has led to the successful development of a composite, non-combustible and lightweight cladding core— a product previously thought to be impossible to create. Experimenting with different ceramic particles to formulate a composite to withstand 750 degrees Celsius, this newly formulated material has the potential to support the global construction industry to create buildings with non-combustible claddings.
Craftmaker, Gill Cordiner.
Credit: Rosina Possingham Photography.
Support needed in Australia's growing craft economy
Lead Investigator: Professor Susan Luckman
Institution: University of South Australia
Scheme: Discovery Projects
This research has examined the economic opportunities and social impacts of Australia's growing multi-million dollar craft economy. Investigations revealed that the biggest challenge for these micro businesses is being able to balance the creative aspects with the business skills and market profile required to turn great products or ideas into income. The findings highlight the importance of policies and programs that support collaboration between industry and creative micro-enterprises to expand, strengthen and support the design-craft sector and to foster the sector through education and training schemes, to ensure it grows into a sustainable and vibrant part of the Australian creative and manufacturing landscape into the future.
New aerial image documenting trap walls hundreds of metres long in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Credit: Anna Kreij and Sean Ulm.
Studying Aboriginal stone-walled fish traps in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Centre Director: Professor Richard Roberts
Institution: University of Wollongong
Scheme: ARC Centres of Excellence
Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage have been using high-resolution drone photogrammetry and spatial information analytical techniques to investigate Kaiadilt Aboriginal stone-walled intertidal fishtraps in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Stone-walled fish traps were used to control the movements of marine animals. They are the largest structures built by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with dense complexes around the South Wellesley Islands and some Torres Strait Islands. The results will feed into plans to protect this extraordinary cultural heritage and help our understanding of how people used these island environments in the past.
The long platypus-like snout of the 400 million year old placoderm fish Brinadabellaspis, from the Taemas site in NSW. Credit: J.Long, Flinders University.
Bizarre 'platypus fish' found on Australia's original reef
Lead Investigator: Professor John Long
Institution: Flinders University
Scheme: Discovery Projects
Researchers have discovered a remarkable ancient fish with a snout resembling a platypus bill; similar to the modern platypus, the fish's long bill may have contained electroreceptors that helped it locate prey. Researchers have reconstructed two ancient Brindabellaspis fossils which existed on coral reef habitats 400 million years ago. Found near the Brindabella Ranges in New South Wales, the site of one of the world's oldest coral reefs, the fossil belongs to an extinct group of armoured fish called the placoderms. The discovery shows that these early species were highly adapted and specialised.
AUV near Sørsdal Glacier.
Credit: Australian Antarctic Division.
First untethered Australian autonomous underwater vehicle dives under Antarctic ice shelf
Director: Professor Richard Coleman
Institution: University of Tasmania
Scheme: Special Research Initiative — Antarctic Gateway Partnership
A $5 million autonomous underwater vehicle named nupiri muka has been successfully deployed under the Sørsdal Glacier ice shelf during the summer Antarctic season. Also supported by the Australian Antarctic Division, this research has allowed a better understanding of the processes occurring underneath the ice—including ocean circulation, water temperature and salinity—and their effect on the way ice sheets melt. Researchers are mapping the profiles of the sea bed and the underside of sea ice using sonar imagery.
A perentie (Varanus giganteus) observed crossing a road into reference bushland adjacent to an active mine site in Mid West Western Australia. Monitor lizards are common throughout arid Australia, but little is known of how they respond to mining activities or site restoration. Perenties forage over large distances and present an ideal species to assess landscape change and restoration success over large spatial scales. Credit: University of Technology, Sydney.
Restoring biodiversity to rehabilitated mines
Researcher: Ms Sophie Cross
Training Centre Director: Professor Kingsley Dixon
Institution: Curtin University
Scheme: Industrial Transformation Training Centres
Research at the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Mine Site Restoration has revealed a global bias in ecological restoration assessments, with longer-term effects on animals being overlooked. This study emphasises the need for increased fauna monitoring and behavioural studies to understand the long-term success of mine site restoration. This research shows that Australia is leading the way in addressing the issue of restoring animal communities and biodiversity to rehabilitated mine sites.
Icefish uk. Credit: Wikipedia commons.
Freezing polar oceans—a great place for fish species formation
Lead Investigator: Dr Peter Cowman
Centre Director: Professor Terence
Hughes
Institution: James Cook University
Scheme: Discovery Early Career
Researcher Award/ARC
Centres of Excellence
Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies have analysed the evolutionary relationships between fish species, finding that the fastest rates of species formation have occurred in Antarctic icefish and their relatives at the highest latitudes and in the coldest ocean waters. Their results challenge the widely-held idea that the tropics serve as an evolutionary cradle for marine fish diversity.
Director Nick Evans manages the lively Q&A session at the public lecture by Dr Alpheaus Graham Zobule, Founder and Executive Director of the Kulu Language Institute in the Solomon Islands, during CoEDL Summer School 2018. Credit: CoEDL.
Leadership in many languages
Centre Director:Professor Nick Evans
Institution: The Australian National University
Scheme: Australian Laureate Fellowships/
ARC Centres of Excellence
The ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) is leading research to secure the future of hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages at risk of being lost or no longer being passed down to the next generation. Of the approximately 300 languages spoken when Europeans arrived in Australia, only 50 are still spoken—most of which are gravely endangered. The Centre is producing linguistic resources (such as dictionaries and story books), and training new field linguists using state-of-the-art methods and technologies.
Mangroves with fish and jellyfish. Credit: iStock.com/Damocean.
Restoring fish habitat to improve the sustainability of fisheries
Lead Investigator: Dr Christopher Brown
Institution: Griffith University
Scheme: Discovery Early Career
Researcher Award
Research has found that protecting fish habitats is critical to recovering the world's fisheries. The study considered estimates that approximately 31 per cent of fish stocks globally are being over-exploited; however, these estimates ignored the effects of habitat loss, in addition to overfishing, on fishery productivity. The outcomes suggest that the resilience of fish populations will increase with the restoration of critical fish habitats, such as mangroves and seagrass.
Chester Beatty Kephalaia Codex plate 240 (image enhanced). Credit: Daniel Boone and Ryan Belnap (Northern Arizona University IDEALab).
Translating an ancient Manichean papyrus manuscript
Lead Investigator: Professor Iain Gardner
Institution: The University of Sydney
Scheme: Discovery Projects
Research has examined the Manichean religion's literary traditions, including the translation of a precious codex known as the 'Dublin Kephalaia', one of the largest papyrus books ever recovered from antiquity. The almost unreadable leaves have been damaged by moisture and blackened by age. By carefully examining each papyrus leaf, utilising various computer enhanced photographic techniques, the researchers are revealing insights into 3rd century Iran. Professor Gardner is now building upon this research through another Discovery Projects scheme grant, examining the liturgical life of one of the most diverse religious traditions of Eurasia.
Autonomous climbing robot for inspection and condition assessment of confined spaces. Credit: University of Technology Sydney.
Autonomous robotic systems to maintain global infrastructure
Lead Investigator: Professor Dikai Liu
Institution: University of Technology Sydney
Scheme: Linkage Projects
Researchers are developing autonomous robotic systems to assist in steel bridge maintenance and underwater structure cleaning, reducing human exposure to physically demanding and potentially hazardous maintenance work. The research team has developed autonomous grit-blasting robots, an underwater robot and bio-inspired climbing robots, which mimic the work of humans and can be used to clean and inspect hard to reach parts of infrastructure, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. These enable access to difficult-to-reach spaces and limit exposure to potentially fatal hazards—including a 134-metre drop from the top of the bridge and risk of exposure to lead-based paint.